


There Will Be Time

by Cinderlei



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Angst, Kink Meme, M/M, Not Beta Read, Post Reichenbach
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-20
Updated: 2013-07-20
Packaged: 2017-12-20 18:30:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,492
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/890466
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cinderlei/pseuds/Cinderlei
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for the LiveJournal Sherlock Kink Meme. </p>
<p>John leaves his phone at work, but discovers he is not alone.</p>
<p><b>Disclaimer:</b> I own nothing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	There Will Be Time

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for the LiveJournal Sherlock Kink Meme a wicked long time ago. The original URL for the fic is here: http://sherlockbbc-fic.livejournal.com/19743.html?thread=117412895#t117412895
> 
> "When Sherlock returns from his hiatus after Reichenbach, he is the one who has married Mary Morstan, not John. No threesome, resolve with Johnlock please."
> 
> Also, this is blatantly unbeta'd. Sorry about that.

_“Let us go then, you and I,_  
When the evening is spread out across the sky  
Like a patient etherized upon a table…” - from _The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock_

John locked the door of his practice behind the final client of the evening. Time had dragged on more slowly than usual today, likely due to the unprecedented amount of walk-in hypochondriacs that decided to pester him all at once. He was glad the day was done and that’s the important part, he reminded himself. There was no use dwelling on the past anymore. Things had been done, and it was inefficient to dwell on what could have happened.

A call, a fall, a crack on the pavement.

He suppressed the memory, thinking instead of his plans to get drinks with Lestrade and his wife later, and how much he was looking forward to the pleasant numbing sensation that a certain amount of alcohol imparts.

It got better with time. Now, instead of crippling him with grief, the image just awarded him with a punchy wrenching feeling in his gut. The weight never really left him, though. The time they had spent together taught John how to be more objective and removed from his own emotions. He noticed that he was never quite as happy anymore, but he certainly wasn’t as sad either. He was flat. Numb. Staying alive. 

He shrugged on his jacket and switched the lights off, eyes sweeping the small, empty practice one last time. He stepped out onto the sidewalk, bathed in yellow streetlight, and yanked the door shut. The key never fit properly in the lock here; he always had to wiggle it violently in order to get it in, and had to put almost his whole weight into pulling it out again. Door satisfactorily locked, he set off at a brisk pace down the street toward the tube station. 

He was on the platform, looking at the approaching train when he realized that his phone was not in his pocket. He cursed loudly and doubled back for it; he still wasn’t sure where he was meeting the Lestrades and he would be even less sure without some means of communicating with them. 

A body check worked well to open the door after wrestling with the lock again. Habitually, he shut the door behind him to keep out the chill. The phone was on the reception desk. He felt his way through the waiting area, dimly lit from the streetlight through the curtained window, and reached over the counter in the general direction of where he left it, sighing when his fingers wrapped around the rectangular plastic. 

If he hurried, he figured he would be able to catch the next train. He squeezed the phone in his hand to make sure it was there this time, and reached for the door handle. 

“You should get a new door.” 

John had been a soldier, and he kept his instincts sharp. Even with the poor lighting, he felt confident that he would be able to fight off an intruder if the need arose. And it wasn’t as though this was the safest of London neighborhoods, so he shouldn’t have been surprised that the time had come for him to experience his first break-in. 

Knowing that an intruder is real is one thing. Doubting that the voice you heard actually spoke is another thing entirely. 

He didn’t turn. He didn’t look. He shut his eyes and said, “I have finally lost it.”

“Doubtful.”

John’s hand darted to the wall and switched on the lights. He took several deep, heavy breaths to calm down, and then he turned. 

What disquieted John most was that, upon first glance, he looked exactly the same as he remembered him: Tailored suit, black shirt, a mess of curly brown hair, sharp blue eyes that missed nothing. He stood in the doorway to the exam room, hands folded behind his back, face blank in what John figured could only be the way he expressed apprehension. There were some creases around his eyes that he didn’t remember existing. 

John stared at him, breathing deeply. His head felt light. 

“Sherlock.” His phone landed on the floor with a crack and a clatter. 

“John, I—”

He pulled Sherlock close and buried his face in the taller man’s chest. It wasn’t until later that John realized this was the first time he ever held Sherlock. The detective smelled faintly of soap, more strongly of chemicals and cigarettes. It was a welcome scent; it reminded John of Baker Street and the lab at St. Bart’s and late-night taxi rides to places that no sane person would travel to. It was a moment before he felt Sherlock’s arms around his shoulders. 

“Don’t say you’re sorry, because I know you’re not. Don’t say you’re a fake. Don’t say you’re not real.” 

“But I am sorry.”

How does he tell Sherlock that sorry just isn’t enough? “Why now? After all of this time, why now?”

Sherlock takes a deep breath. “Because you’re my only friend, and I’m getting married in the morning.”

Left field had nothing on the direction this came from. The statement hit John in the gut like a cannonball. He couldn’t help the look of confusion that spread over his face as he stepped away from the detective. “You’re joking.” 

“Sadly, I still am less than adept at comedy. Case in point.” 

He tried to picture Sherlock standing next to a bride, surrounded by people, smiling in a photograph taken at the altar, but in every version he thought up the detective looked stoic, as ever. 

“Mycroft has been supporting me. He set me up in Bristol. She lives next door to where I was staying. He seemed like it was a good idea if I disguised myself as an ordinary man and did ordinary things. I had him alter my identity. So, tomorrow, Mary Morstan will be marrying John Smith, a librarian.

“For the first time, I don’t know what to do, John. I need help. You’re the only one I could ever turn to for that,” he admitted, his piercing gaze catching John’s. 

This was a lot to process at once. John’s mind was racing to keep up with everything. Every syllable he uttered was more unbelievable than the last. It had been so long, and so painful. The memory couldn’t be contained any longer. A call, a fall, a crack on the pavement and then, three years later, here he stood, on his last night as a bachelor. John could feel his eyes begin to betray him. 

“No,” was all he said. 

“I don’t understand.”

“Neither did I, Sherlock!” John held Sherlock’s gaze. “You died! I saw you. You were dead and bleeding on the sidewalk. There was blood. There was a lot of blood. And they buried you, and I buried you, and I tried really hard to forget but that was impossible, and now here you are! Getting married! What the fuck do you want me to tell you? That you have my congratulations? Do you really love her?” 

“It’s not about ‘love!’ If I come back, I will be putting you in danger. If I stay in that life, my mind will rot and become stagnant, and that for me is worse than death.”

“What part of this is not about love? I loved you, Sherlock! I loved you more than I could ever have thought possible. All those times I said I wasn’t gay? I lied. I lied to everyone, because I thought you would never care for anybody like that. Right now, I don’t know if I was wrong or right or Willy-fucking-Wonka, but apparently you feel the only option you have available so you can be happy is to marry some woman so you can pretend to be normal. I don’t care about danger. I never have. I would die for you if you asked me to. The only thing that I care about is that I will never be happy if you’re not with me. So if you still feel like you need to get married, so be it. Be happy, because I won’t be.”

He knew he was going to regret that. Deep emotions were ones he kept reserved and well-regulated. Nobody was ever supposed to know any of that. 

Sherlock was silent, still holding his stare. He took the doctor’s smaller hand in his and held it tightly. “That was all I needed to hear.” The detective lifted John’s chin with his finger and pressed their lips together firmly. 

John’s heart was beating out of his chest, emotion compounded with surprise. His knees grew weak and he leaned against the taller man, deepening the kiss. A quiet moan escaped his throat when he felt the detective’s tongue move against his own. 

When Sherlock pulled away, he rested his forehead against John’s and smiled. “Welcome home, John,” he said.


End file.
